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Chapter : 3
Being kissed by the person you loved only after you had died was undoubtedly a miserable thing.
Yet, strangely enough, I wasn’t heartbroken or overwhelmed with sorrow.
I was simply confused.
Why is he kissing me…?
I had no idea how much time had passed since my death, but my corpse looked unnaturally well-preserved. Even so, the absence of a soul couldn’t be hidden. From where I stood, I could tell my body had become stiff with death.
And yet, as if he felt none of it, His Highness lifted my lifeless body into his arms and continued kissing me.
As though he didn’t care in the slightest about the eyes watching him.
If it had only been a brief touch of the lips before he pulled away, it could have been considered a final honor bestowed upon a knight who had given his life.
That alone would have been unusual, but His Highness knew how I felt.
I could have believed it was his final gift to me.
If only that had been the case…
A slave receiving a kiss of gratitude from his master…
The word undeserved wasn’t enough to describe such generosity.
“What in the world is going on? Was Sir Tienas originally an Omega?”
“As if. Impossible.”
It was common knowledge that Tienas was a Beta.
Among the nobility, failing to manifest a secondary gender was extremely rare, and within House Seyers, I was the first recorded case.
The only reason the man—presumably Ayla’s attendant—would ask such a question was because His Highness looked exactly like someone who had gone mad after losing his lover.
Even I, who knew better than anyone that such a thing couldn’t be true, couldn’t help thinking so.
Around the time the silent organ resumed playing in scattered notes, the long kiss finally came to an end.
His Highness slowly stood and gently placed my body back inside what looked less like a coffin and more like an exquisitely crafted display case.
Standing before it, he seemed no less sorrowful despite having kissed me for so long.
As he stroked my cheek, he spoke to everyone present in a tone that sounded more like a warning than a request.
“This is the funeral of the knight I cherished most. Conduct yourselves with the proper respect.”
The actions he had just displayed were hardly those one would show to a mere cherished knight.
Yet no one was foolish enough to point that out.
Most lowered their heads, not even daring to meet his eyes.
…Sister Jane?
Except for one person.
She was staring directly at His Highness with an expression filled with hatred.
It was nothing like the cold, indifferent gaze she always directed at me—as though I were invisible.
This was pure fury.
I couldn’t begin to imagine why she would commit such an act of disrespect.
“Young Master, once the second row finishes, it’ll be our turn to offer flowers. Just like I told you earlier, you absolutely must not cause any trouble! Not only that—you can’t whistle at a handsome Alpha and strike up a conversation, you can’t secretly release pheromones because you spot a pretty Omega, and you definitely can’t ‘accidentally’ brush against a Beta who’s your type.”
Every forbidden act he listed somehow revolved around romantic scandals.
I’d heard Ayla was a hopeless delinquent, but to think he flirted with absolutely everyone regardless of sex or secondary gender…
If my current situation weren’t already so absurd, I would have been thoroughly disgusted.
“I won’t do anything like that.”
“You said the same thing last time, and then you slipped away while I wasn’t looking! I’m not falling for that anymore!”
Marquis Jeras, Ayla’s father, was an exceptionally dignified man.
I truly couldn’t understand how someone like him had produced a son like this.
“No matter how much of a troublemaker I am, do you really think I’d pull something like that at a funeral?”
At the moment, I had more than enough to deal with just watching His Highness.
I gave the most reasonable answer I could manage, only to feel an utterly unconvinced stare from beside me.
Rather than meeting the attendant’s eyes, I ignored him.
“We should go. Get up.”
Leaving the dumbfounded attendant behind, I stood first.
The closer I drew to my own body, the closer I came to His Highness.
His beautiful, meticulously groomed blond hair was disheveled, strands sticking out in every direction.
The skin beneath his eyes was red.
It was a picture-perfect appearance, almost as though his grief had been deliberately painted onto a canvas.
But knowing the man he truly was…
I simply couldn’t understand it.
My heart pounded painfully fast.
I couldn’t tell whether it raced because of my reverence for him…
Or because seeing him so broken filled me with sorrow.
What happened to make you like this?
My death alone should never have been enough to reduce you to this.
It couldn’t have been.
With great effort, I tore my gaze away from him and turned toward my coffin instead.
No matter where my thoughts wandered, there was something I needed to do first.
It’s really Tienas…
Looking down at my own face felt stranger than I had expected.
My expression was peaceful, as though I were merely asleep.
Perhaps that was what made it so unsettling.
It didn’t resemble any corpse I’d ever seen.
It was as though someone had known I was already dead and repeatedly cast healing magic on my body anyway, restoring every wound until not a single blemish remained.
The immaculate appearance sent chills down my spine.
What was it like… kissing His Highness?
As I placed my flower down, I quietly asked my own corpse.
Naturally…
There was no answer.
I’d been acting shocked this whole time, yet here I was, feeling jealous of a corpse simply because it had been kissed by His Highness.
The realization was so ridiculous that I almost laughed.
If I stayed any longer, I felt certain I’d be consumed by even more irrational emotions.
So I quickly turned away.
Perhaps because I’d lingered longer than everyone else, I could feel curious gazes following me.
Whatever.
If my guess is right, once this funeral is over… I’ll disappear anyway.
Having surrendered to fate, I stopped thinking.
Instead, I simply looked at the face of the person I loved.
Just as I gazed at him…
He gazed only at my corpse.
For the first time…
I found myself resenting him.
* * *
The funeral did not end until after sunset.
His Highness, who remained until the very end, personally closed my coffin.
“We will omit the final rite.”
Every other funeral ceremony had been carried out.
Yet he deliberately skipped the final ritual—the prayer that was meant to send the departed soul onward.
Was that why?
Contrary to my expectations…
I wasn’t forced out of this body.
Why isn’t this ending?
Instead of my consciousness fading away, I’m only becoming more accustomed to this frail body.
At first, inhabiting it had felt awkward and foreign.
Now it felt as natural as though I’d lived in it for over ten years.
I was growing tired of sitting blankly inside the carriage, wondering when this strange situation would finally end.
Apparently, the attendant also found my behavior unusual.
“Young Master… why are you so quiet today?”
He sounded genuinely disturbed by how silent Ayla was.
“I’ve got a lot to think about.”
I had no idea how Ayla normally spoke.
But with no clue when I’d be thrown out of this body, I had no intention of pretending to be him perfectly.
There were far more important things demanding my attention.
It’s a normal enough answer. He’ll probably let it go.
So I thought.
“…Think? Think, you say? Young Master… you’re actually thinking?”
His reaction was anything but ordinary.
“No, no… that’s impossible. Young Master, don’t think! You just saw someone attractive at the funeral, didn’t you? You’re trying to figure out how to seduce them, right? There’s no other explanation. There’s no way you’d actually be thinking about something!”
The attendant continued spouting outrageously disrespectful remarks toward his own master.
Judging by this reaction…
The rumors about Ayla hadn’t been exaggerated.
If anything, they’d been understated.
“That’s not it, so please… be quiet.”
I let out a long sigh and finally silenced the frantic attendant.
He looked even more anxious afterward, but I needed to organize my own thoughts first.
After nearly an hour of riding in silence, I finally reached a conclusion.
If I’m still inside this man’s body tomorrow…
Then I’ll find out exactly what’s going on.
His Highness… and the Seyers family… something about all of them is wrong.
Both His Highness and my blood relatives had behaved far too strangely at the funeral.
Either there was some benefit to pretending to mourn my death…
Or there was a greater reason I knew nothing about.
There’s no way they’d truly grieve my death that much.
It was the only conclusion that made sense.
Once I’d decided what I needed to do, the turmoil in my heart gradually settled.
The next day…
I was still inside Ayla’s body.
There was no denying it anymore.
I had taken over Ayla’s body.
And it was time to act.
Perhaps… I still have a role left to fulfill.
The very first step toward uncovering the truth had already become clear.
